Hail of Blades oversights (Jhin/Sylas)

BrainiacOutcast·Feb 6, 2019·1 votes·1,984 views

Jhin doesn't benefit from hail of blades on his first auto attack with it:

When you pick hail on Jhin, it doesn't apply to his first attack in any way, only his second and third. It's not pushed back to apply to the next auto after that like he used to after 8.22, he only gets the benefit from it on two attacks. It's also not tied to which auto he's on in his reload cycle. My best guess for why is that part of the 8.20/8.22 bugfixes was not reverted when hail was later changed to apply to the triggering attack and the next two, rather than the three after the triggering attack.

Sylas' auto resets don't prolong the effect of hail of blades:

Recently, hail was changed to have more synergy with auto resets by not consuming a hail auto when you'd be attacking again quick anyways. Thanks a bunch for that, by the way! When Sylas came out his W and E1 auto resets got overlooked, that's all.

24 Comments

iiGazeiiFeb 6, 20191 votes

The Jhin change was on purpose because it was inconsistent with everybody else. Nobody benefits from bonus attack speed for one attack. Anybody else building Hail of Blades wouldn't have gotten use out of attacking once and backing out.

But Jhin does. Jhin benefits a LOT.

Getting a fourth shot with a huge spike of attack speed for bonus AD and movement speed to run away for free was too good.

BrainiacOutcastFeb 6, 20191 votes

Every other champion benefits from hail on the first three attacks now, give it a try in-game. In 8.22, it was supposed to trigger on the first normal attack, and speed up the next three, but Jhin was triggering it and benefiting from it on the first one and the next two. In 8.22 that was fixed and his first attack would trigger it, benefiting 2/3/4 as intended.

The problem is that when hail of blades was changed to its current form, where the first attack is supposed to benefit, they forgot to remove whatever they coded into Jhin in 8.22, and now he just gets the benefit for the second and third attacks. Not the fourth, and he shouldn't since nobody else does. Not the first, but he should, since everybody else does.

iiGazeiiFeb 6, 20191 votes

That's not true. That's not how it works, and not how the fix was supposed to work. Hail of Blades is supposed to trigger on the first attack and give you a burst of attack speed so that you can land three attacks in quick succession.

Attack speed doesn't benefit anybody for one attack. You need at least two attacks for attack speed to have any effect on your damage output. Hail of Blades only changes what happens between attack 1 and 2, and between attack 2 and 3.

Jhin was a special case because his attacks don't actually get any faster with attack speed. They just hit harder. Jhin was able to hit somebody once with a Hail of Blades attack and get increased damage output for one attack. Other champions would need to commit at least two attacks in order to get any benefit from Hail of Blades, but Jhin only needed to commit one. This effect was incredibly strong, since Jhin's playstyle is all about short trades and hit-and-run tactics. Hail of Blades would give him a huge burst of damage and movement speed for a single attack.

They changed it so that Jhin only gets attack speed BETWEEN the first attack and the second because that's when everybody else sees a benefit.

BrainiacOutcastFeb 6, 20191 votes

A single faster attack benefits all champions. The time from click to damage is lower and the time you spend locked in, unable to do anything else without canceling the auto, is lower. The fact that attack speed provides Jhin more damage per auto and some ms instead of more autos is literally just the point of Whisper. That's Jhin's thing. Like I said to another guy earlier, I'm down for nerfing Jhin if necessary, but not artificially by leaving this unfixed.

I think the most important point I should make is that your reasons for not having hail work properly on Jhin are your own. Balancing for hit and run doesn't have anything to do with why the changes were made. Let's review the history:

8.11: Hail of blades is added.

8.20: Jhin now gets hail of blades' as towards his ad on 2-3-4, but still gets it towards his ms on 1-2-3.

8.22: Another bugfix, Jhin now gets the ms on 2-3-4, like everyone else, everything is good.

Later: Hail of blades is changed to benefit 1-2-3, but they forget about Jhin, and he only gets the benefit on 2-3.

iiGazeiiFeb 6, 20191 votes

There's nothing to be fixed. It's working as intended.

Attack speed changing the cast time of attacks is an incredibly minute benefit that is in no way equivalent to Jhin getting 27.5% more damage out of his autos through his passive and an extra 44% movespeed on his crits. At level 1. With no items. Jhin should not get that much power out of a rune when any other champion gets basically nothing until they commit to two autos. His poke with his last shot would be insane. There's a reason why they changed it.

I don't think it ever worked like you think it did. It was always the first three attacks, not the first attack, then the three attacks after that. That's why there's no patch notes describing that (massive) change to its functionality. It never happened.

BrainiacOutcastFeb 6, 20191 votes

There's nothing to be fixed. It's working as intended.

I'm sorry but I'm going to dig in a bit harder now. If you're reading/posting in good faith, then by now you should be able to understand that it's a bug.

Attack speed changing the cast time of attacks is an incredibly minute benefit that is in no way equivalent to Jhin getting 27.5% more damage out of his autos through his passive and an extra 44% movespeed on his crits. At level 1. With no items. Jhin should not get that much power out of a rune when any other champion gets basically nothing until they commit to two autos.

Attacks going faster is the main reason attack speed is valuable for most champions. Looking at the value it gives Jhin vs other champions for one attack in a vacuum is just dishonest. Rebalancing Jhin is on the table, in some other thread at some other time, if whisper's ad/ms overcompensates not gaining attack rate. I'm done reading/talking about how hail is or isn't balanced on Jhin here though.

There's a reason why they changed it.

I don't think it ever worked like you think it did. It was always the first three attacks, not the first attack, then the three attacks after that. That's why there's no patch notes describing that (massive) change to its functionality. It never happened.

The history I gave above is correct. You can check patch notes for old functionality and reasons, and load up the game for current functionality/tooltip - like I did when I put it together - if you won't take my word for it. Sorry for going ad hominem here but have you used hail of blades now and then? If you had, you'd know how it used to work and how it does now. Nobody should argue like that about stuff they have both not looked up and not experienced.

iiGazeiiFeb 6, 20191 votes

I don't think you understand what I'm trying to say.

There is no bug with Hail of Blades and Jhin. Its current functionality, where it only applies the bonus attack speed on Jhin's second and third attacks, is 100% the intended function. The devs stated this explicitly when they made that change.

The reason is simple. NOBODY benefits from Hail of Blades for all three attacks. Bonus attack speed only shortens the time between attacks, so the only difference in damage output is for attacks 2 and 3. Attack 1 is no different when you have that bonus attack speed or when you don't.

Case 1: A non-Jhin champion makes 1 attack with Hail of Blades. They get no benefit from Hail of Blades.

Case 2: Jhin makes 1 attack with Hail of Blades. He gets no benefit from Hail of Blades.

Case 3: A non-Jhin champion makes 2 attacks with Hail of Blades. They get an increase in damage output due to Hail of Blades.

Case 4: Jhin makes 2 attacks with Hail of Blades. He gets an increase in damage output due to Hail of Blades.

Consistency. That's what you're not getting. Jhin doesn't get the bonus damage on the first attack to make HoB's function consistent with other champions.

BrainiacOutcastFeb 7, 20191 votes

I understand what you're trying to say perfectly but it's not correct. Your first attack still comes out faster, and the time from your first attack coming out to your next chance to do an action is still shorter. Whether or not your next move is to attack again sooner with the saved time is irrelevant. You dealt that same one attack's damage in less time, that one auto had higher dps. An aa doesn't happen in an instant and then need another point to measure between for dps to be a thing, each aa has a certain length of time it consumes.

If you have a rioter comment on social media or whatever that I should see, I'm down to read it, send it my way. There's nothing about it in the patch notes though. What we did have was this:

Don't let the "Bugfix" tag below fool you, this is a pretty substantial power-down to Hail of Blades Jhin. Bonus attack speed increases both Jhin's attack damage and the movement speed he gets from critical strikes, so while most champions would be relatively unimpacted by Hail of Blades' 75-125% bonus attack speed buffing their first basic attack, Jhin's been reaping real benefits from the bug.

A champion whose kit likes a rune more will lose more when a bug made it apply earlier than it should is fixed, so it makes sense to announce that it acts as a nerf.

I do want to mention that I had the above history a little out of order with patch numbers. I'll update both posts in a moment stay tuned. Never trust wiki transcripts of patch notes!

iiGazeiiFeb 7, 20191 votes

https://na.leagueoflegends.com/en/news/game-updates/patch/patch-820-notes

It's in the official patch notes. The devs said that most champions would be "relatively unimpacted" by the attack speed buff for their first attack, but Jhin gets a huge benefit due to the conversion, so they removed the bonus for his first attack. Which is exactly what I've been telling you.

The devs made it the way that it is on purpose. You've been relentlessly arguing a point that has already been opened and closed.

BrainiacOutcastFeb 7, 20191 votes

I edited that comment probably while you were replying, already addressed that and mentioned I made a small but somewhat irrelevant mistake with my paraphrasing of the history of the rune. I'll copy what I had to say about that to this comment too and just put the corrected history below.

Don't let the "Bugfix" tag below fool you, this is a pretty substantial power-down to Hail of Blades Jhin. Bonus attack speed increases both Jhin's attack damage and the movement speed he gets from critical strikes, so while most champions would be relatively unimpacted by Hail of Blades' 75-125% bonus attack speed buffing their first basic attack, Jhin's been reaping real benefits from the bug.

A champion whose kit likes a rune more will lose more when a bug that made it apply earlier than it should is fixed, so it makes sense to announce that it acts as a nerf.

Corrected history:

8.11: Hail of blades is added.

8.20: Jhin now gets hail of blades' as towards his ad on 2-3-4, but still gets it towards his ms on 1-2-3.

8.22: Another bugfix, Jhin now gets the ms on 2-3-4, like everyone else, everything is good.

Later: Hail of blades is changed to benefit 1-2-3, but they forget about Jhin, and he only gets the benefit on 2-3.

The devs made it the way that it is on purpose. You've been relentlessly arguing a point that has already been opened and closed.

No. They. Did. Not. Jhin is intended to benefit on from hail of blades for three of his attacks, period, and anything that contradicts that is wrong. First, they showed it by continuing to have him benefit from it on the normal number of attacks through every documented change. Second, they said it explicitly in 8.22:

FOUR Fixed a bug where Jhin was NOT getting an empowered haste off his third Hail of Blades attack

If you still fail to understand that jhin getting the benefit on only two attacks is a bug, or you insist it should be intended because it suits your sense of balance, we're done here. If not, and I hope not, we'll go from there.

iiGazeiiFeb 7, 20191 votes

I really don't believe that Hail of Blades ever had a 2-3-4 functionality. That would be a pretty massive change, yet it isn't mentioned in any patch notes?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tYYYZBhovQs

Here's a video that was made when Hail of Blades was first introduced that clearly shows it had a 1-2-3 functionality for everybody, not just Jhin.

BrainiacOutcastFeb 7, 20191 votes

Maybe it was 1-2-3 for a while on release. The wiki phrases it like it was 2-3-4 from the start, but that already misinformed me once today. Ask anyone who actually used it on some of their champions over the last dozen patches and they'll tell you it spent a significant amount of time as 2-3-4, you can find reddit threads talking about that aspect of it with a minute on google.

Referring to your other comment, it's kinda easy to get mixed up about what they meant by the word "third". In 8.22 it refers to the third of those meant to benefit, not including the triggering one, as in the 4 out of 2-3-4. I know that not by reading their minds, but by noticing the hail bonus applying to my fourth shot as I stubbornly kept using it during 8.22. Then later I noticed it not applying, and noticed that it wasn't 2-3-4 for other champions, but 1-2-3.

That was a few months back. The bug's been here for a while now; it's not some 'oh hey we did this on purpose last patch but forgot to mention it' thing. This is old news to me and settled already, and all that remains is to get riot's attention to have it fixed. I'm not going to spend any more time explaining it, there's more than enough info for you to understand that it's unintended.

iiGazeiiFeb 7, 20191 votes

So you're saying that it worked as a 1-2-3 attack speed buff when launched, changed somewhere in the middle to 2-3-4, then changed back to 1-2-3, all without patch notes? It seems far more likely that it never changed at all, and you are mistaken.

The wiki is worded strangely, I'll give you that. It does make it seem like you have to attack to activate the effect, THEN you get three empowered attacks, but that's not how it functioned when launched, that's not how it functions now, and that's not what the tooltip reads in-game. The description in-game reads "Your first three attacks", and that's how it works.

Regardless of how you think it worked sometime in the middle there, the fact of the matter is that right now, Jhin does not get the bonus on his first attack, and it's explicit in the patch notes that that is intentional. There is no bug.

iiGazeiiFeb 7, 20191 votes

Also, all that quote proves is that he's supposed to get hit on his third, not for all three. Nothing in that quote says that he's supposed to get it for the first one.

Are the devs wrong? Because the 8.2 patch notes clearly state that they only intend him to get the benefit for two attacks.

Hail of Blades no longer applies to Jhin's first basic attack.

KFCeytronFeb 6, 20191 votes

The change wasn't an oversight, it was to correct an oversight. Jhin would just shoot someone for huge damage and run away at high speed, over and over again.

BrainiacOutcastFeb 6, 20191 votes

I know, that correction was the 8.22 bugfix I mentioned. When hail of blades was later changed to be intended to apply to the first attack, the way it did on Jhin before 8.22, they forgot to revert it.

KFCeytronFeb 6, 20191 votes

{quoted}

I know, that change was the 8.22 bugfix I mentioned. When hail of blades was later changed to be intended to apply to the first attack, they forgot to revert it.

I don't think they forgot; I think Jhin was intentionally not broken again.

BrainiacOutcastFeb 6, 20191 votes

I understand the hit and run playstyle might be a pain to play against, but he should work the same as literally all of the other champions. I'm totally down to nerf his as->ms conversion if he needs it, but a bug is still a bug. The poke probably wouldn't be a big deal at all after the stormrazor changes anyways.

KFCeytronFeb 6, 20191 votes

{quoted}

I understand the hit and run playstyle might be a pain to play against, but he should work the same as literally all of the other champions. I'm totally down to nerf his as->ms conversion if he needs it, but a bug is still a bug. The poke probably wouldn't be a big deal at all after the stormrazor changes anyways.

I agree that all champions should follow the same basic rules, but Riot doesn't do that anymore. We've got a champion that loads every marksman stat into AD for huge burst (Jhin), a single item that brings people to 100% crit chance (Stormrazor), a champion who can't cancel her autoattack animation and instead dashes multiple times per second (Kalista), a champion that gives every ADC an untargetable effect (Tahm), and so on.

BrainiacOutcastFeb 6, 20191 votes

Sorry, I phrased that poorly. I meant that there shouldn't be one champion that randomly gets 2 boosted attacks from a rune that gives 3 to everyone else.

KFCeytronFeb 6, 20191 votes

{quoted}

Sorry, I phrased that poorly. I meant that there shouldn't be one champion that randomly gets 2 boosted attacks from a rune that gives 3 to everyone else.

I agree! But this is the least bad compromise Riot could come up with at this time, given their incredibly shortsighted design decisions.

BrainiacOutcastFeb 6, 20191 votes

The thing I'm trying to get changed wasn't something riot came up with or did on purpose. What they actually did at the time was make hail of blades work for him like it does for everyone else by making him not get as on the first, and then get as on 2/3/4. Then when they changed hail to work on 1/2/3, they forgot Jhin was coded specifically to never work on 1, so he just gets 2/3, and he needs 1/2/3 to be consistent with everyone else. I want them to make hail of blades work for him like it does for everyone else again.

Elite4RunnerFeb 6, 20191 votes

Sylas's W and the first cast of his E are not auto resets.

I think you are thinking of animation canceling, which is not the same thing.

Hail of Blades wouldn't work effectively with Sylas's passive because the bonus attack speed is too much to effectively weave in abilities.

BrainiacOutcastFeb 6, 20191 votes

Animation canceling just allows you to quickly skip an ability's wind down animation by aaing right after, but it doesn't let you aa sooner than usual if you just aaed just before using the ability. Auto resets erase the remaining cooldown on your aas, so you can aa-reset-aa much more quickly than your attack speed will allow you to aa-aa. Sylas Q, R, and E2 are not auto resets but can be animation cancelled if you have enough attack speed (which hail of blades would work amazing for, since he just needs attack speed during his combo as opposed to sustained dps). W and E1 are auto resets; you can auto-W-auto-E-auto basically as fast as you can click, with no attack speed.